Jamie M. Kass, Bruno Vilela, Matthew Aiello-Lammens, Robert

Muscarella, and Robert P. Anderson

Wallace: A flexible platform for reproducible

modeling of species niches and distributions

built for community expansion

Wallace

What is Wallace? And Why?

Applied biodiversity informatics

Anderson (2012)

Agenda: Making data and modeling ready to address

critical environmental issues of the 21st century

1. High-quality data, ready to be accessed when the

particular problem presents itself

2. Software that achieves an appropriate balance

between automation and supervision

3. Scientists capable of building, applying, and

appraising high-quality models

Agenda: applied biodiversity informatics

1. High-quality data, ready to be accessed when the

particular problem presents itself

2. Software that achieves an appropriate balance

between automation and supervision

3. Scientists capable of building, applying, and

appraising high-quality models

Agenda: applied biodiversity informatics

1. High-quality data, ready to be accessed when the

particular problem presents itself

2. Software that achieves an appropriate balance

between automation and supervision

3. Scientists capable of building, applying, and

appraising high-quality models

Agenda: applied biodiversity informatics

1. High-quality data, ready to be accessed when the

particular problem presents itself

Continued large-scale, across-the-board databasing

and georeferencing initiatives

High priority taxonomic projects realized in parallel

Agenda: applied biodiversity informatics

2. Software that achieves an appropriate balance

between automation and supervision

• automates repetitive aspects

• forces user to make critical biological and

conceptual decisions

• general with respect to the algorithm/s used

Agenda: applied biodiversity informatics

2. Software that achieves an appropriate balance

between automation and supervision

• automates repetitive aspects

• forces user to make critical biological and

conceptual decisions

• general with respect to the algorithm/s used

“umbrella tools that can be employed with any

particular modeling algorithm”

Agenda: applied biodiversity informatics

3. Scientists capable of building, applying, and

appraising high-quality models

• clear literature

• workshops

• graduate courses

Agenda: applied biodiversity informatics

Correlative modeling of species

niches and distributions

Occurrence

records

Environmental

data

Algorithm Model of

niche

Suitable areas

Anderson (2015)

Robert Anderson, Robert Boria, Peter Galante, Jamie Kass,

Aleksandar Radosavljevic, Mariano Soley-Guardia, Maria Uriarte, Bruno Vilela

Robert Muscarella Matthew Aiello-Lammens

Recent R packages: spThin and ENMeval

Nielsen

Nielsen

UCONN

CUNY

Aarhus

UFG

Alcalá

Creativity,

“discussion”

and fun

Wallace

Point-and-click (GUI) application that includes most

steps of a niche/distribution modeling workflow

• Harnesses R packages and gives credit to their

authors

What is Wallace beta 0.6?

Wallace’s code is free

and OPEN

(& users can download

data from online

databases.)

Qualities of Wallace

Wallace provides

GUIDANCE

that addresses

conceptual and

methodological

issues.

Qualities of Wallace

Wallace is FLEXIBLE

by providing

multiple options,

and allowing user

inputs and

downloads for most

components.

Qualities of Wallace

Wallace features

INTERACTIVE

maps, tables, and

graphs to explore

data and model

predictions.

Qualities of Wallace

Wallace is

REPRODUCIBLE

by providing

executable code for

documenting and

rerunning the

analysis.

Qualities of Wallace

Wallace is EXPANDABLE!

by featuring different

methodological options

(modules) that

researchers can

contribute to advance

functionality.

Qualities of Wallace

Wallace is expandable

Wallace is expandable

Wallace is expandable

Wallace is expandable

Future directions

1. First full release soon

(software note in review)

2. Ongoing NSF funding to

respond to immediate user

needs (Google group and

Wallace e-mail)

3. Seeking more funding,

with Cory Merow (to work

with external partners to

add new modules)

NSF DBI-1650241

THANK YOU

… please help us make Wallace better … and grow

http://www.andersonlab.ccny.cuny.edu

DEB-1119915 and DBI-1650241

http://wallaceecomod.github.io